Meet the Wolseleys - the toffs who assumed they'd live out their days in luxury but lost the lot.

Sir Charles and Lady Imogen Wolseley expected not only a life of ease for themselves but to leave a hefty stash to hand on to the kids. But instead an existance of genteel poverty awaits.

The hard-up aristos are on their uppers and being kicked out of their eight-bedroom pad on the 1,490-acre estate in Rugeley, Staffs, which has been in their family for a thousand years.

A plan to turn their land into a tourist attraction ended in disaster when the bank pulled the plug - and plunged them into bankruptcy.

A quick look around their home shows what a wrench it will be to leave it all behind.

It's crammed with giant portraits of Charles's ancestors and, above the staircase, near the games room, hangs a giant painting of his great grandmother Anna Theresa Murphy being confirmed by Pope Leo XIII.

"I very much doubt there will be space for that in our new home," sighs Imogen. "We're hoping a museum in San Francisco might buy it."

And Charles, 63, laments: "There are some things we are taking, such as rare portraits of the family line dating back to the reign of James I, but other things are simply too big.

"We've been hanging on as best we could, but the bank finally sold the house. It's very sad."

But before you reach for the hankies, the Wolseleys aren't heading off to a damp bed sit.

Oh no. It's a cramped new barn conversion with just four bedrooms, two bathrooms and a shower room. How will they cope?

"It's a new development and we'll be moving in within a couple of months," says the brassic Baronet. "It is smaller than this place obviously."

It's been more than 10 years since Sir Charles lost everything - and amassed debts of £2.5m - yet he hasn't lost the upper-class habit of being frightfully confused by money.

So how much is he living on?

"I don't quite remember what the figure is," he mumbles. "But it's a standard pension credit for married couples, a small amount of money."

And demonstrating the classic stiff upper lip, he adds that he's jolly well determined not to let this financial disaster destroy him.

"It's been very stressful and time-consuming but you just have to get on with things," he says. "And we've had a decade getting used to cutting back our spending, which of course helps."

In fact, he's become a bit of an expert at making do. "It's amazing what you find you don't need.

Luckily I have plenty of quality clothes so I don't need to buy any more.

"The other day somebody said they admired my new suit. They were astonished when I revealed that I'd actually bought it in 1967 but because I'm still the same weight I was when I was 17 I can still wear it."

And American-born Lady Wolseley, who comes from Ohio, can always rely on her very rich friends.

She says: "My family have all died but friends from Miami have been very, very helpful.

"I have a friend with a dress shop who kept me supplied - about twice a year a care package would arrive. I would receive beautiful dresses and shoes from Dior, Armani, Valentino, you name it.

"But unfortunately she sold her shop and retired."

So Lady Wolseley has learned to scrimp and save, too.

She says: "You do have to live rather creatively. I remember once we had to go to a wedding and I needed a black hat to go with my outfit.

"I simply didn't have one, but I did have a beige hat that looked just right. So Charles used some black car spray-paint on it and it came out all shiny just like a car bonnet."

But what makes Charles really sad is not being able to pass on his family fortune to his children from a previous marriage - Annabel, 38, Emily, 35, Lucy, 30, and 27-year-old Captain Stephen Wolseley, a platoon commander who has just come back from Iraq. "That's the most upsetting part, breaking the line," says Sir Charles - still betraying no hint of emotion. "But my children have known all about what's been going on all the way through so they've followed it with us and supported us all the way.

"They understand we've done the best we could in the circumstances."

Lady Wolseley is more revealing. "It's like a long, slow, death," she says. "It's been very, very painful for a number of years. This house was the final bit to go. It's a very big wrench and moving is always traumatic even if you want to go.

"It is very upsetting really to leave, when it's happened after a thousand years, on your watch. You feel as though you are caretakers and the house is to be passed on." The Wolseley family were given the estate by King Edgar in 975AD as a reward for ridding the area of wolves. But now that Sir Charles has failed to keep the wolf from the door his family are being shown it.

However, Sir Charles is not the first member of his family to lose everything. Lady Wolseley explains: "The fifth Baronet, William V, was the last Wolseley to have serious money. But his son, William VI, gambled it all away." And, she reveals, another member of their family, Charles VII, couldn't wait to give it all away.

"He happened to be on a grand tour of the Continent when the French Revolution started and he actually stormed the Bastille," she says.

"He came back to Britain and became the leader of the radical movement, fighting for revolution. He was eventually sent to prison for inciting crowds to riot in Stockport.

"Two hundred years later we received an invitation from President Mitterand to attend the French bicentennial celebrations but we couldn't make it because it only arrived two days before the event."

And now the colourful family's occupancy of the estate is also set to become a thing of the past.

Imogen says: "It has been a privilege to live here but all that will soon be history."